The role of the audit committee and the internal audit function in corporate governance has grown in recent years. In that context, the audit literature and practice has underlined the increasingly important role of support and interaction between the audit committee and the internal audit with the aim to improve the corporate governance quality. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of audit committee in achieving the independence of internal auditor. Data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews addressed to chief internal auditor, auditors, TPDC staff and the audit committee also by means of documentary sources The results suggest that the expertise and frequency of meetings of the audit committee have a positive impact on audit committee interaction with internal audit, while the size of the audit committee affects negatively this interaction. However, audit committee independence has no effect on audit committee relation with the internal audit function.

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Master of Science in Accounting And Finance (MSc A&F) of Mzumbe University.